There's no doubt children come equipped with wild imaginations, but what happens there's actual truth behind it all? That's exactly what happened when a young boy named Ryan began experiencing nightmares at the age of four.

It wasn't until he turned five that he decided to finally confront his parents about his past life which centered around being an actor and working on various movies in the 1930s.

Reincarnation or Coincidence?

Ryan told stories of how he danced on Broadway, lived on a street with the word "rock" in its name and even hung out with legends including Rita Hayworth. "His stories were so detailed and they were so extensive, that it just wasn’t like a child could have made it up," said his mother, Cyndi.

As a baptist, she struggled with understanding the concept of reincarnation and decided to keep his memories a secret from everyone including her own husband. It wasn't until she did some research at the library and discovered a picture which sparked her curiosity even further.

In the still photograph from the 1932 movie "Night After Night," Ryan clearly pointed to one of the extras in the shot and declared that it was him.

Later a psychiatry professor named Dr. Jim Tucker decided to look into Ryan's amazing recollection of his past. Having documented a number of other similar cases, Tucker would discover the man in the picture was Marty Martyn, who did practically all of the things Ryan claimed he did in his previous life.

Knowing The Truth

Even details which couldn't be researched online turned out to be completely accurate with further investigation. "If you look at a picture of a guy with no lines in a movie, and then tell me about his life, I don’t think many of us would have come up with Marty Martyn’s life," said Dr Tucker.

Although online records were vague, it wasn't until Tucker tracked down Martyn’s own daughter, that he was able to finally able to confirm 55 details Ryan gave about his life.

According to Tucker, “He said he didn’t see why God would let you get to be 61 and then make you come back as a baby."

Although the claim seemed to be incorrect at the time, it wasn't until Tucker discovered census records which showed Martyn was born in 1903 rather than 1905, proving Ryan's statement was more accurate than the actual birth certificate of Martyn.

The actor, who died back in 1964, even lived at 825 North Roxbury Dr. in Beverly Hills, a match to Ryan's description of living at a place with the word "rock" in its name. Tucker’s office contains the files of more than 2,500 cases accumulated from all over the world by his predecessor, Ian Stevenson.

Although he died in 2007, Stevenson began investigating the strange phenomena back in 1961 and kept detailed interviews and evidence on each case. Although Ryan is 10-years of age now and memories of his past life are fading like other children, the numbers for this particular type of phenomena continue to grow.